


Waiting Room

by rosesupposes



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Bruce is Dying, Cancer, Gen, Illness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-25 06:08:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21931213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosesupposes/pseuds/rosesupposes
Summary: "Dick supposes he shouldn’t be surprised when he walks into the ICU waiting room and finds Tim and Damian curled up together on one of the uncomfortable couches. The last time he’d seen them together, they’d hated each other but that had been almost a year ago and almost a year was a long time when you were spending most of it in uncomfortable hospital waiting rooms."A call from Clark brings Dick home from LA. He finds a lot has changed.
Comments: 7
Kudos: 68





	Waiting Room

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this about two years ago and I don't remember what inspired it but I came across it recently and wanted to get it to a point I felt I could post it. I had originally planned for it to be a full fledged fic and it may still be some day but this is where it's at now.
> 
> See end notes for some background on this little universe (mostly stuff that's sprinkled throughout the fic) and a timeline of what led to this point.

Dick supposes he shouldn’t be surprised when he walks into the hospital waiting room and finds Tim and Damian curled up together on one of the uncomfortable couches. The last time he’d seen them together, they’d hated each other but that had been almost a year ago and almost a year was a long time when you were spending most of it in uncomfortable hospital waiting rooms. Damian is asleep, face pushed into Tim’s chest and feet tucked under him. Tim is awake, his arms wrapped around Damian while he types away at something on his phone. Dick thinks it should be awkward and maybe a bit painful but it looks like Tim finds it second nature- like he does it often and he’s figured out the secret of doing it comfortably.

Not quite knowing what else to do, Dick clears his throat. Tim looks up at him and his eyes widen. “Timmy-” he starts to say but Tim holds up a finger and returns to typing. A few seconds later, Dick’s phone starts to buzz. He opens the text Tim sent.

_D not sleeping well. Give him an hour. Food?_

Dick looks at his little brothers again and it’s clear that neither of them have been sleeping well. Damian’s face is scrunched up in stress, even as he sleeps, and Tim has deep bags under his eyes. He nods, even though Tim isn’t actually looking at him. He texts Tim back.

_Chinese okay? Same orders?_

Tim nods at him, goes back to texting or emailing or whatever he’s doing. Dick leaves the room, barely having said a word, trying desperately to remember Damian’s Chinese order.

Dick takes his time to get back to the waiting room. He wanders around the hospital gift shop for a few minutes until he remembers that Damian is about as boring as can be when it comes to Chinese food and will likely just want some fried rice and a couple of spring rolls. Tim has had a gross obsession with cashew chicken since he first came to the Waynes and ate Chinese food for the first time. Dick picks a place across town even though their lo mein is awful and orders as he gets into his car. He obeys every single speed limit as he drives across town and spends a minute or two loitering in the parking lot and answering texts from his friends before he goes in and pays. On the way back, he stops at the bank to deposit a check and take out some cash. The teller inside gives him a few lollipops along with his cash.

He uses a side entrance when he gets back to the hospital. When he’d showed up the first time, he’d had to stop at the information desk to ask for a room number. He’s glad he can avoid it this time. Hospital staff are entirely too pitying when they send you towards an ICU. Dick can recall clearly what the volunteer at the desk had said. “Mr. Wayne can’t have visitors at the moment but you’ll likely find his boys in the waiting room just outside the ICU. Such sweet boys. It’s all so sad. Well, I’ll let you get on your way then.” Dick hadn’t bothered to correct her, to tell her that he was also one of Mr. Wayne’s boys. He’s glad to avoid her this time. He walks slowly toward the ICU, looping through the east wing to take the long way around.

When he gets back to the waiting room, the door is closed but he can hear faint voices through it anyway. He stops to listen. He can barely see Tim through the small window in the door. 

“I know it’s hard, Dami, but you need to do it. You’re missing too much school to not get your work done.” Tim sounds tired. He’s resorted to begging. Dick doesn’t remember it being that hard to get Damian to do his school work. Damian is a smart kid and he enjoys learning even though being in a classroom with other kids his age is ‘beneath him.’

“It’s not hard, Drake.” Damian’s voice is fierce and Dick can see the way Tim winces at the end of that statement. “It’s unbelievably stupid and condescending. It’s not challenging enough for the morons in my class, much less for myself.”

“I know, Damian, I promise you, I know. And we talked with Headmistress Jasper about moving you up a grade but you need to do your work for that. It’s been hard enough to justify it with all the school you’re missing. And you may lose your scholarship if you can’t get your grades up.”

Dick is surprised to hear that Damian’s grades have dropped so low. The Waynes lived comfortably but it had been Dick’s athletic talent and Tim and Damian’s intelligence that had guaranteed them their places at Gotham Academy with modest scholarships.

“I don’t want to do it.”

“I know.”

That seems to be the end of the argument. Without seeing Damian’s face, Dick can’t tell who won. He gives them a few moments before he opens the door, just in case they start fighting again. “I have food!” he declares, holding up the bags of Chinese food triumphantly.

Dick doesn’t know what he expects from Damian. He almost expects Damian to leap up and hug him, to seek comfort from him the way he had before but he doesn’t. He looks at Dick, glares at Tim, picks his backpack up from the floor, and stalks over to a door in the corner of the room that Dick hadn’t noticed before. It appears there is another, smaller room just off the waiting room. Damian walks in and slams the door shut.

Dick turns back to Tim. The teenager sighs a deep world-weary sigh and gives Dick an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry, Dick. Damian’s- he’s really stressed out. The idea of losing-” Tim pauses, swallows hard, looks teary-eyed. “He’s scared and he’s angry.” The ‘at you’ is left unsaid but Dick hears it anyway.

Dick tries not to feel hurt that Damian is angry with him. He finds his eyes getting wet but ignores that in favor of setting the food down on the table and pulling Tim into a hug. Tim buries his head into Dick’s chest and they just stand there for a few minutes, Tim shaking against him. Dick doesn’t say anything, just holds his younger brother against his chest and rubs his back. 

After a few minutes, Tim steps back, rubs at his eyes, sniffs particularly hard, and starts sorting through the bags of Chinese food. He picks up Damian’s rice and vegetable rolls and tells Dick to wait a minute. He goes over to the door and knocks. “C’mon, Dami, open up. You need to come out. It’s just me and Dick.” He gets no response. “Alright, you can stay in there. Open up. I have food.” There’s a click as the door unlocks and Damian opens it just a crack. He and Tim have a low conversation that ends with Tim handing Damian the food and a set of chopsticks and Damian handing something to Tim before closing the door again. 

Tim walks back over to the couch and falls on it again, setting whatever it is Damian had handed him on the table and reaching for his food. He starts shoveling it down with a fervor. Dick joins him. “Thanks for the food, Dick,” he says, once he finally takes a break to breathe.

“Is, uh, is Damian coming out?”

Tim shakes his head. “I told him he could stay as long as he ate and did his homework. Took his video games to make sure he would.” Tim nods to the device on the table. Dick recognizes the latest Nintendo device- he can’t remember what it’s called, just that it’s way more advanced than the Game Boy Color Bruce had gotten him for Christmas years ago. Dick barely believes Tim had convinced Damian to let go of it. Before Dick had left, Damian’s more difficult moments had been left to him and he’d never even been able to handle him quite that well- he’d usually handed him the game to give him time to cool down.

Dick doesn’t ask why Damian wants to hide. He knows it’s him but he doesn’t need to hear that from Tim.

They eat in silence for a minute. “So what assignment did he not want to do?”

“They’re supposed to write about their family. Dami thinks his teacher only assigned it because he’s mad at him.”

Dick sighs. “Did he?”

Tim sighs. “Probably. But don’t tell him I said that. Mr. DeKeyser doesn’t like that Damian misses so much school but does so well.”

“How much school does he miss?” Tim doesn’t answer but instead grabs for one of the beef skewers and Dick snatches them out of the way. “I get three more questions before you get a beef skewer.”

Tim makes the little whining noise he does whenever he’s trying to get something from Dick. “C’mon, Dick, I want a beef skewer.”

Dick grinned, holding the little paper bag away from Tim who is half-heartedly reaching for them. “How much school does Damian miss, Timmy?”

Tim takes a thoughtful bite of his own cashew chicken. “More now than before. I had to drop my year but thankfully he hasn’t. His teacher is getting a little fed up with it but he understands in the end, I guess. Dami goes on and on about Mr. DeKeyser assigning things just to hurt him but I don’t think that’s usually true. I hope not at least. If Damian wants to skip a grade, the last thing he needs is for Headmistress Jasper to think he’s complaining about award winning teachers.”

Dick mulls that over for a minute, storing away the fact that Tim had dropped out of school for the year for a later time. “Alright then, Babybird. There’s one.” The way Tim smiles at the nickname warms Dick’s heart. He takes another bite of food, thinks about what he really wants to ask and what he can actually ask. Dick knows what he wants to ask but he also knows Tim and knows from the way he’s biting his lip that he’s one wrong thought from bursting into tears. Dick refuses to be the one to puts that thought into Tim’s head.

“Hurry up and ask me, Dick. I want that beef skewer. It’s probably the only thing that I could eat right now.” Contrary to his statement, Tim shoves another forkful of cashew chicken into his mouth. 

Dick hums. “Shhh. I’m picking my questions.” Tim rolls his eyes and Dick rolls his in turn. “When did you get so impatient, Timmy?”

“I’ve always been this impatient when you hold my food hostage. That’s question two.”

“No fair.” Dick wants to slap himself over the head for being so careless with his questions but doesn’t push Tim to let him have another question. If Tim expects more of a fight, he doesn’t let Dick know. Dick has to choose his last question carefully. He really, really wants to ask why Tim didn’t keep him updated but that puts unfair blame on Tim and Tim already looks like he has the weight of his world on his shoulders. He can’t figure out a question that will get him actual information without upsetting Tim so he settles for a bogus question that he knows Tim would answer anyway. “When can we see Bruce?”

Tim shrugs. “They’re not sure right now. Hopefully, in the next hour or two. He had a bad reaction to some new meds this morning and no one’s allowed in until the doctor clears that he’s stable. Give me my beef skewer.”

Dick passes Tim the package after taking one for himself. They fall into more normal conversation after that. Dick regales Tim of his adventures in Los Angeles. Tim gives him all the Gotham updates. Even with their massively scaled down schedules, Damian and Tim have both gained belts in their various martial arts, Tim has a new pommel horse routine but hasn’t been able to quite perfect his new dismount yet, and Damian had brought a new cat home which he named Alfred after their neighbor and landlord. Two of Tim’s really good friends, Tam and Cass, are off to college soon. The last member of their quartet, Steph, is mourning them even though they haven’t even graduated yet.

“Oh, and Steph and Babs have started hanging out.”

Dick moans. Dick’s ex and Tim’s ex in the same room only spells trouble for Dick and Tim. “What do they even do?”

Tim shakes his head. “I have no idea. Steph won’t tell me. She just says they’re starting a Wayne brothers’ ex-girlfriends club.”

“This is bad news, Tim. Bad news.”

“Well, Steph hasn’t gotten any better at fixing her own computer problems so it’s not that at least.”

“I mean what could they-”

Dick is cut off by the waiting room door swinging open. “Sorry I’ve been so long, Babybird, I ended up having to close out the breakfast shift and I didn’t want to come without a shower. The last time I came here smelling like grease, Bruce puked for half an hour.”

Dick freezes. He has his back to the door but he knows that voice. Jason. His mind is swirling with thoughts. Dick hadn’t known Jason was back in Gotham. He tries to push down the weird jealous feeling that threatens him when he hears Jason has already seen Bruce. Jason is using Dick’s nickname for Tim. Jason is talking to Tim with affection. Jason hasn’t noticed him yet.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

Well. There goes Dick’s half-formed plan of blending in with the couch. Dick turns around to face his younger brother. Jason looks as angry as he sounds, with his cell phone in one hand and his free hand balled up in a fist at his side. “Hi, Jay.”

Before he can say anything else Tim is on his feet, a hand on Jason’s shoulder. Jason immediately puts one protective arm around Tim’s shoulder, glaring at Dick as if he would try to hurt Tim. “Relax, Jay,” Tim says. “Clark called him. He just got in this morning. I meant to tell you but it slipped my mind what with Damian’s school stuff and everything. I’m sorry, it’s really my fault, not-”

Jason puts a hand over Tim’s mouth. “What did I say about apologizing like that, kid?” Tim’s shoulders drop and Jason removes his hand.

“Not to.” Dick has never seen one of Tim’s panic attacks stopped so effectively and he hates that Jason appears to be able to help Tim in ways that he never could. The fact that Jason and Tim are so comfortable in each other’s space- that Jason is even at the hospital for Bruce- is throwing him for a loop. “Promise you won’t yell at Dick?”

Jason takes several deep breaths as he looks over Tim. Apparently finding whatever it is he’s looking for, he nods. “I won’t,” he says eventually. “But only because Babybird asked me to,” he adds, turning sharply to glare at Dick. Dick holds his hands up in surrender and Jason turns away from him. “Where’s the demon brat?”

“In the quiet room,” Tim says, gesturing to the door Damian had disappeared behind. “He’s working on his homework.”

“And Bruce?”

Tim’s face drops a little and Jason pulls him into a one armed hug, hand patting at his upper arm. Dick tries to tell himself it doesn’t hurt when Tim melts into it a little bit. “He started seizing while we were visiting and then something started dropping so they kicked us out. Julia said she’d come get us when things calmed down. She came by a while ago to say he’s stable now but they’re doing a few more tests before we can go back.”

“I’ll make sure the demon brat gets his work done.” Jason stalks over to the quiet room, where Damian lets him in after a brief exchange through the door. Dick decides he really hates the feeling curling in the pit of his stomach.

Dick and Tim go back to eating but their conversation is a lot more subdued. Dick doesn’t ask about Jason even though he wants to. Tim eventually offers the information anyway. “He started coming back around just before Christmas. Alfred told him Bruce was sick. He was working mostly dinner shifts at this diner so he could take Bruce to things while I was at school.”

“I’m glad he was there,” Dick says but the terrible part of him really wishes Jason wasn’t because Jason shouldn’t be good with Tim and Damian and shouldn’t have been the one driving Bruce to appointments while Tim was at school.

“He’s been teaching me to cook and he’s really good with Dami and he knows how to convince Alfred to make the really good desserts when he has us over for dinner and-”

Apparently in the last four months Jason has managed to make up for being absent for the last four years. “Tim,” Dick says, a little harshly. He regrets it when he sees Tim’s face fall. “Why are you telling me this?”

“I- I just-” Tim takes a deep breath. “You were so mad at Jason when he left and when we would run into him and he would taunt me. And even before then whenever he was mean to me, you would always lecture him about how brothers were supposed to be and I just want you to know that he’s not a bad person and he’s a good brother now.”

There’s a lot of emotion in Tim’s words but Dick knows he’s not trying to guilt trip him. He’s not trying, but he’s succeeding anyway. 

Dick remembers those lectures. The transition period after Bruce had taken in Tim had not been easy on any of them. Tim had been grieving his parents and walking on eggshells in a house that expressed love in ways he didn’t understand and had a lack of rules that didn’t make sense to him. Jason had been feeling like he was being replaced with a newer, smarter youngest brother and had shown his stress by picking up a smoking habit and tormenting Tim. Dick had just started college and just started really chafing under the expectations he felt from Bruce and had been trying to mediate the one-sided war between Jason and Tim whenever he was at home. Dick had spent so much time- hours, probably- lecturing Jason on what it meant to be big brother. He’d admonished Jason for not being patient while Tim grieved, for not thinking to check on Tim when he knew he was having a bad day. Once, when Bruce was down sick with the flu after Tim had had it the week before and Jason had insisted Tim could take care of Bruce because it was his fault, Dick had lectured him on sharing the responsibilities of caring for family with each other, whether it was splitting up chores or taking care of a sick family members. Older brothers pulled their weight, he’d said, and more if the little brothers couldn’t handle all of their own.

Before Dick can say anything in response to Tim, a nurse opens the door to the ICU waiting area. “Tim? We’ve finished up the tests. No major changes. He’s asleep but you can see Bruce now if you like.”

Tim’s face brightens a little at the news. “Thanks, Julie. Is it okay if we bring back four? Damian and Jason are here too.”

“I shouldn’t let you so soon after an episode but I will, only because I know you’ll be good.” This statement comes with a stern glare from the nurse. “Take your time.”

Julie leaves and Tim sighs heavily. Their food is mostly gone, with not enough left to make it worth saving, and they clean it up together before Tim goes to knock on the door of the quiet room. He explains the situation and Dami is out of the room like a shot, Jason following closely behind him. Tim comes back over to Dick, putting a folder and Damian’s game console into Damian’s backpack. They talk quietly as Tim leads Dick into and through the ICU, towards Bruce’s room. Dick hates the feeling of the ICU. It’s quieter and more still than the rest of the hospital but when there’s action, it’s more serious.

“Are you ready, Dick?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah. I think so. Haven’t seen Bruce in a while.”

“He- I should warn you, he looks really bad right now. There’s a lot of machines.”

Dick squeezes Tim’s arm. “I know, Tim. Clark gave me a full update.”

Tim leads Dick into Bruce’s ICU room, where Jason and Damian have already claimed the only two chairs.

Tim wasn’t wrong. Bruce is surrounded by machines, mostly attached to him by various wires. There are two IVs and Dick can tell that they’ve been pulled out and reinserted often from bruises up and down Bruce’s arms. Bruce’s eyes are closed but he doesn’t exactly look peaceful, not with the cannula in his nose and his brow furrowed. His hair is mostly gone. From the chemo, Dick thinks. Bruce’s whole body looks oddly small, his skin sallow and his muscle wasting away.

Fuck, Dick thinks, as he watches Jason reading to Bruce and Damian fussing with the blankets of his hospital bed. He’s messed up and he doesn’t know how to fix it.

**Author's Note:**

> All the boys were adopted by Bruce in this verse in similar ways to canon but he is not Batman and owns a much smaller consulting company with Lucius Fox. As a general timeline, Jason ran away about 4 years ago but was very much still in Gotham for much of that time. This fic takes place in April, with Dick having had a huge fight with Bruce after graduating college the previous May and moving to LA that July. Bruce got sick (or sick enough for him to admit it and see a doctor) in September and has been in and out of the hospital since then for treatment but has been in the hospital pretty much full time for several months. Until he was recently moved to the ICU, his doctors were optimistic about his recovery despite complication after complication, so even though Dick was getting some updates, he truly didn't believe things to be that big a deal until Clark called him and told him things were very much a big deal.
> 
> Find me on tumblr at rosesupposes.


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